As the Edinburgh festival finally comes to an end, so do weeks of prize-giving ceremonies that have collectively seen more awards handed over than the Oscars. True, Hollywood's finest might be more familiar with sipping champagne on the red carpet than downing pints of Tennent's in the "faded glamour" of a leaking tent, but then they don't have an award for Best Poster? Indeed, in Edinburgh it can seem like there is a prize for everything. But after the increasingly weird-looking trophies have been handed over (just look at the Jack Tinker Spirit of the Fringe award), the teary thank-yous have evaporated and the engravers have shut up shop, just what does winning (or losing) a prize at the festival actually mean?

Of course, prize-counting is a ridiculous system that ignores the different criteria and genres for each competition, as well as how important you deem specific awards to be – but it's no less illogical than adding up how many stars a show collectively has to decide how good it is. Indeed, even when shows are eligible for the same prizes, the results are often contradictory. For instance, this year virtually all of the winners of Mervyn Stutter's Spirit of the Fringe awards and The MTM: UK Musical Theatre Matters awards failed to win any other competitions, despite often being in the running for these as well. Does this mean that "fringe spirit" is unimportant to the judges of say, the Fringe Firsts? Or that the Holden Theatre awards subscribe to the view that musical theatre doesn't matter? No, but it does highlight how competition judges' opinions are as subjective as anyone else's.

So, for anyone sitting at home staring at a space on the wall meant for a piece of gilded paraphernalia, why not make your own? After all, a Three Weeks Editors' award has this year gone to Escalator East to Edinburgh, an Arts Council-funded initiative, so it can't be too long before those dishing out awards commit the ultimate act of nepotism and start giving them to themselves. Best Guardian Theatre Blogger? Best Judge of a Fringe Show? Maybe the Festival Media Network will take time off from monitoring critics and kindly let us know who the lucky person is?